Not so big as a horse or as dramatic as a fart, but one of my toads, a smallish one that lives in my veggie garden, left the biggest turd, in proportion to it's body size, that I have ever seen, on my sidewalk this evening. I'm not sure whether to say "that must have hurt" or "that must have felt good!"

The only thing worse than the notion of a vicious spiral is the spiral of a vicious notion.

Okay, it's not the only thing, but it's one of 'em.

And as for the dancing dinosaurs, sorry, but they just won't form themselves into a coherent compelling vision. I've checked in with this thread several times today and each time I've gone "Oh, yeah! I'm supposed to be hounded by the idea of dancing dinosaurs!" and a minute or two later I forget all about them.

Brought the place to a halt with that story. Will you write the screenplay, and get millions selling it to Hollywood? Of course, by the time they finish the film the freeways will be ablaze and there will be ancient dinos in the water, but that's a small price to pay to bring a great story to the screen.

I rose before four on the morning of the FOurth, and drove down to the SHores with my kayak. In the darkness before dawn, I rolled out onto the hard-packed sands and unloaded my sea-kayak and set it up, and then found a place to park--not as easy even at five AM as you would think. THen I strolled the beaches until the first light began to make things more visible.

In the dark along the beachfront, there was clump after clump to be found of families who had crept out of bed even earlier than I had, or who had camped on the beach the night before, staking out the space they required for their family day on the sand. They had small fires burning merrily in the firepits, they had stakes, awnings, tents, or just seaweed dragged into rectangles, to mark where their turf on the beach would be when the crowds flooded in and packed the whole place.

When the sky lightened I went back to my kayak and launched on a northwest track, heading out toward the kelp beds. Once you pass the surf-line, a calm overcomes you--the water at this hour is flat and still except for the slow rhythm of the incoming tidal waters, which rise and fall gently until they reach the shallows where they curl and break in small rollers.

Heading further out, you arrive over the deep chasm of the La Jolla Trench, where the bottom at thirty feet changes suddenly from an undulating sandbox floor to a canyon, tumbling down to several hundred feet deep in the space of perhaps a half-mile. There are bouys at the surface that mark the boundaries of an Ecological Preserve, forbidden to spear-guns or lobster traps. I paddled out to the furthest buoy which i perhaps a mile from shore, and bobbed up against it, and watched the sun on the waters. I heard the splashing of the fingerlings breaking the surface, and watched a cormorant decide on breakfast and plummet down from the air into the water to catch it. A splash to my starboard side caught my attention--a whirling spiral in the water about thirty yards off. A moment later, the author--a large harbor seal -- breached right alongside, rose up and examined me with a beady eye, and slipped below the dark water again.

Then the fog moved in. The view of the distant beach, shadowy, punctuated with glimmering campfires, disappeared. The view of the horizon west vanished in a wall of mist. I found in the space of a few minutes that I could not see more than thirty yards in any direction. As I paddled away from the bouy, I realized I had no orientation points--I could not tell if I was leaving that lone spar behind me to the south or the east or the west or the north. Only the mist. I took bearings from the set of the sea, and moved through the fog without seeing. The distant sound of the surf was hard to pinpoint in the fog, the sound diffuse and reflected so its direction was hard to make out.

Paddling through that mist was like an adventure in the Twilight Zone, or some metaphysical adventure through the boundaries of one's own limitations. The bouy vanished, and the sounds were muted, and I paddled--left, right, left right, rest.

It turned out well, of course. The sound of the surf clarified as the fog began to thin somewhat, and then I heard a human shriek from one of the campers, and any uncertainty about where I was lessened. The dark outline of Mount Soledad, haloed by fog with sunlight bouncing around in it, slowly appeared, and as I steered for it, the fog lessened further until I could see the beach again and make my way slowly back toward it.

I came back into the grip of civilization, riding a slow, low breaker into the shallows, and drew my little ayak up the sands, and went and got the car.

The only thing that happens is that the ball changes color if you successfully click on it. Gluon's able to click on the ball every time and still find time to hump Rapire's leg between tosses. He's fast.

Speaking of Gluon, he's half duck and half dog, right? And ducks molt while dogs shed, right? So which one does Gluon do?

I did, several times. Nothing much happened. Sort of like living in Idaho.

Y'all will be pleased to know that the Idaho Legion's First Annual Annual Fireworks Display was canceled. Seems like the pyrotechnics cost somewhat more this year than last and the price was out of the range of the Legion's pocketbook. The Pyrotechnical Committee met and decided to Do It Themselves.

This would have been okay except that they figured that the best way to get the biggest bang for the buck (so to speak) was to use up some of the ammo the various members have squirreled away. 17,500 rounds of tracer ammo for Bodaddy's quad-fifties would have been nice, assuming that the bullets landed in the hills and not in the towns, and surprisingly the cops approved IF the T&E mechanism was locked. The fire department also approved the use of fougasse as long as it wasn't in a dry area. Various aerial bursts and flares were also approved.

But it was not to be. Crazy Parsifal scotched the whole show when he decided that what was needed for a GREAT finale was twin napalm/white phosphorous runs along the crests of the hills bordering the town forming a giant "V" for "Victory Over England." The runs would be made by the four F4Fs Crazy keeps at the aerodrome and would be piloted by him and his semi-sober buddies.

At this point the US Forest Service, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Council, the City Councils, the mayors of both towns, the Idaho National Guard, and several types of cops put their collective feet down and the show has been canceled. The BATF is also looking into the homes and outbuildings of several Legionnaires and Legionnettes.

You're right. The ong view must be given fair consideration. Ongification, I've heard, can raise consciousness to levels of subtle vibration that can cause all the illusions of the gross material worlds to fall away, like so many layers of skin off an onion, until the final, bare, undeniable truth of existence is seen, at which point one realizes in a stunning moment of complete knowledge and wonder that--

Well, I dunno, LH. You're being kind of heartless. Take the ong view. Where will tomorrow's children be without MOAB? When they are adults, will they be sobersides without grace, deprived of humour? Will they be un-poets only able to parse direct propositions bounded by reality as she is practiced? Come come--MOAB needs progeny for the sake of the future of humanity, Man!!! And as one of the few disseminators not already attached by vows of marital fidelity, it falls, my friend, on you to do something about this!!!

Just thought I'd create a momentary interruption in your little coffee klatch here. ;-D I do so enjoy doing that now and then. Besides, I worry that without the injection of some non-familial genes from outside the circle now and then this thread could become downright incestuous. If so, it might produce inbred progeny, and we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods , Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals , fallen in the pool , Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask , I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance , suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

Oh MOAB! If the scholars ask thee why This treasure is wasted on earth and sky Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing Then BS is its own excuse for being! Oh, why thou were, oh essence for the nose I never sought to ask, I only knew That the self-same power that brought me here brought pee-uu!

Dang; I saw "The New Mother" in a thread title, and read it in my mind as "The New Mother of all BS threads" for a second there. I was gonna drop in and say "New Mother? New Mother? Can i watch her pop a boobie out to feed the baby?"